Here's the scene: we're in remote Iceland, say, two hours away from Reykjavik at the Geyser, excuse me, Geysir (pronounced Gay-sir) park, and there happens to be a fashion photo shoot going on. No big deal, there are photo shoots going on all over the world. I mean, Iceland isn't exactly Paris, but it's not hard to fathom that some clothing company or magazine would fly their models, stylists, hair dressers, make-up artists, and photographers to a sparsely populated island near the arctic circle to do some photographing two hours outside of the island's largest (and only) city. On second thought, that is a bit hard to fathom.

Well, here are the photographs I took of the models. It was freezing cold so as soon as the photographer was finished the girls were smothered with thick, black capes to protect them from hypothermia....

So a few weeks later I come back to the US and go about my own business. Then I come home one day and the Urban Outfitters catalog is waiting for me in the mail. No big deal, I've been getting the catalog for years. But then I turn to the first page....

Ah, so we meet again....

But seriously, how fucking weird is that. I happen to be halfway across the world and in the exact location of a photoshoot of a catalog which I regularly get in the mail. Well, for those of you who were curious, apparently all those exotic locations in the Urban Outfitters catologs are authentic. Who would have thought?

So after looking through the whole catalog, I can definitely say it was all shot on location in Iceland. Which is pretty fucking cool. I can almost do side-by-side comparisons of my photographs with the ones in the catalog. Hey wait - that's a really good idea...

Geysir Park: My photographs

Geysir Park: Urban Outfitters Catalog

The Farm Marshmellows: my photograph(they are actually bundles of hay that have been wrapped in plastic)

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

These are photographs of the Russian Orthodox cemetery in Helsinki. Orthodox cemeteries are always easy it spot because of the ubiquitous Orthodox cross, which has two crossbars that are not found on the typical Christian cross.

My understanding of it is that the top crossbar represents that plaque that bore Jesus' name during crucifixion. The middle (longest) crossbar is, of course, where is his arms were outstretched and nailed. However, I am uncertain about the lower (slanted) bar. As a child, I thought is represented the sword that was trust into Jesus' ribs, but some sources say it represents his feet, or the thieve that were crucified next to him.

All photographs were taken with my Canon S95.

Crosses everywhere....

I had never been to a Russian Orthodox cemetery before, and I noticed that at this particular cemetery many gravestones bore images of the deceased. Pictures on tombstones are not unique to the Orthodox cemeteries. The same can be found in Hong Kong and the US, only those tombstones use actual photographs, where as the Russian tombstones had the image etched into marble.

Another interesting thing about this cemetery was the benches everywhere. No other cemetery I have seen provides places for people to sit (unless they are dually used as a park, such is the case in Denmark). But these benches were obviously not there for people to picnic. My assumption is that perhaps relatives of the deceased typically spend a longer time visit the gravestones so that they need somewhere to sit.

Which is sort of ironic because there are no benches or seats in Russian Orthodox church....